A network of individuals is working overseas to play down Modi's Hindu hardliner image and pitch him as a leader with whom the world can do business.

NEW DELHI: While Narendra Modi's image managers keep up their high voltage blitz to sell him as a development icon in India, a network of individuals and organisations is working quietly overseas to play down his Hindu hardliner image and pitch him as a leader with whom the world can do business.

Their work has all the makings of a track II diplomatic effort, with the United States, which has denied Modi a visa to enter 2005 for failing to handle the 2002 communal riots, being particularly targeted.

At work are a disparate cast of characters including professional lobbyists, opinion shapers, former diplomats, reputed think-tanks and influential NRI organizations. All of them are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to boost Modi's international acceptability, especially in Western capitals.

Prominent names that came up during ET inquiries are of Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), a right wing think tank headed by former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval, who has long been considered a potential National Security Advisor (NSA) in a BJP-led government. The cast of characters and organisations include former US Ambassadors to India, notably Robert Blackwill, lobbying giant APCO Worldwide, Indian Americans for Freedom, Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

Coordinating these efforts is the BJP's Overseas Affairs cell and influential NRIs through Overseas Friends of BJP. A substantial and influential Gujarati population, settled in the US, is also doing its bit.

"It is a major branding exercise. It is part of the BJP's larger strategy to rid Modi of the Hindutva hardliner image. It is high time we countered the propaganda that projected Modi as a fascist....There is a strong perception in the US that the minorities will be persecuted and their religious freedom curbed in government headed by Modi," explains a person involved with the exercise, asking not to be identified.

The exercise started in a big way last year, coinciding with the rising 'Modi for PM' clamour from party cadres, and in January last year, the pro-Modi lobbyists had their first major success when Ambassadors of European Union (EU) met Modi for lunch at the Chanakyapuri residence of German Ambassador Michael Steiner. Three months before that, British High Commissioner Sir James Bevan met Modi in Gandhinagar.

A major behind-the-scenes operator in these efforts has been UK-based lawyer Manoj Ladwa. Ladwa, who hails from Porbandar in Gujarat and is also the convener of Europe India Chambers of Commerce, is credited by party insiders as having laid much of the groundwork that led to the UK's change of heart about Modi.

Ladwa did not respond to an email query, but in one of his recent blog posts he said that a "new BJP, a new political narrative, and perhaps, just perhaps a new opportunity to spread the inclusive development that Gujarat has enjoyed to other parts of India". "That can only be in the UK's interest," he said.

After the EU, it was the turn of 20 Ambassadors of Latin America and Caribbean to break the ice with Modi, meeting him in June last year. While a steady parade of countries dropped their opposition to Modi, only the US remained steadfast in its boycott through last year. But in February this year, that also crumbled, with America's Ambassador to India, Nancy Powell, meeting Modi in Gandhinagar, marking a successful culmination of a long drawn out effort that had been underway at multiple levels.

VIF, a think-tank that includes severaI security, strategic affairs and foreign policy experts, especially played a key role in shoring up Modi's image internationally and engaging with former US ambassadors Blackwill and Frank Wisner as part of these efforts.

VIF's Director Doval confirmed to ET that it had tried to "correct the distortion in Modi's image".

"Deliberate efforts to vilify the image of the country's most popular democratically elected leader harm India's national image and interests. The world, respecting India's democracy, must show due deference to the leaders that people elect," he said.

Blackwill, a senior fellow of US Council on Foreign Relations and a lobbyist, did not respond to queries emailed to him. His representative said he was travelling and would not be able to answer any queries. Wisner too did not respond to an email from ET. Blackwill, who was ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003, had met Modi in Gandhinagar in August last year and after the meeting called the Gujarat chief minister a "prominent political thinker" who could not be shunned. "I don't believe US is in a position, thousands of miles away, to have a magisterial opinion about what happens here in India," he said.

Also key to Modi's rebranding is public relations firm APCO Worldwide, which has for many years handled the Gujarat government's Vibrant Gujarat event and is largely credited with his repositioning as a developent icon from a Hindutva mascot. APCO, which is based in Washington, counts former US Ambassador to India Tim Roemer among its top officials.

APCO told ET that its mandate was "limited to positioning Gujarat as an investment destination" and "Vibrant Gujarat Summit as a global business and knowledge hub".

Former Indian ambassador to the US, Lalit Mansingh, who is part of APCO's International Advisory Council, said that after the EU, Australia and other countries giving warming up to Modi, the US too was bound to follow suit.

"It would be quite embarrassing for the Americans not to recognise a democratically elected leader. One is not saying whether he will be elected or not, but it would lead to a peculiar situation, which I think the Americans will be keen to avoid," said Mansingh.

Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has also played a key role in lobbying for Modi in the US. Though HAF claims it is an independent non-partisan NGO "serving Hindu Americans across all sampradayas", most its activities lately are aimed at promoting Modi in the US.

The HAF ensured last December dropping of an anti-Modi resolution - H. Res. 417 - that pressed for continued visa denial to Modi and suggested that India "empower the National Commission on Minorities with enforcement mechanisms, such as the ability to conduct trials and hear appeals". HAF's legal counsel Suhag Shukla told ET that more than "anti-Modi, the resolution was "anti-India, and Hinduphobic".

More recently, the HAF opposed a US Congressional panel's hearing on religious freedom in India, calling it an attempt to influence elections in India and aimed at undermining the BJP's PM candidate.

Another Indian American organisation USINPAC is putting pressure on the White House to end the boycott of Modi. Its chairman Sanjay Puri said that many of his organisation's members were reaching out to their elected representatives to educate them about the importance of inviting Modi to the White House in case Modi becomes the PM.

"According to various independent polls there is a strong likelihood of Mr Narendra Modi becoming the next Prime Minister of India next month. President Obama must seize this opportunity of the UN General Assembly (to be held in September) to invite Mr. Modi and give leadership to a relationship which seems to be languishing presently," said Puri.

Closer home, Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) has been coordinating with many of these organisations to give Modi's image a boost.

Its global convener Vijay Jolly said that OFBJP had kept the "lines of communication alive" at all levels in the US. "I keep telling American friends that communist China has called him six times, they will soon have to follow suit," Jolly said.